Inward Blog

Viewing entries posted in March 2015

Over the last month or so we have been reading reports about how several companies have been adopting new policies in regard to important social issues such as racial diversity and increasing the minimum wage. Just this past week Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, fostered a conversation about race relations in America by asking all of his baristas to write #racetogether on all of their Starbucks cup orders. In January, Aetna raised the public conversation around increasing the minimum wage for its hourly employees suggesting that it is time for American business to be more engaged in improving the lives of people across the country. Walmart has made similar moves to increase hourly wages in recent weeks.

When I deliver workshops or keynotes on the behavior of effective leaders, I often look across the room and watch people nodding their heads in agreement and then commenting about how much better things would be if their boss would just shape up. Although it’s great to see the agreement with these principles of effective leadership that drive team alignment, here’s the problem. Leadership has nothing to do with title or position and everything to do with behavior. Remember, this blog is about effective leadership and employee engagement, not about organizational structure, which is clearly defined by title and position.

John Wooden was an American basketball player and coach. Nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood," as head coach at UCLA he won ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including an unprecedented seven in a row. An old colleague/friend of mine Ralph Cutcher sent me an email reminiscing about the March Madness season. It got him thinking about John Wooden, who was a favorite leader of his when he was one of the most winningest coaches for UCLA. Wooden was famous for his quotes. Ralph’s favorite, "Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out", says it all. It's a great “attitude adjuster”. Ralph went on to list a series of quotes that are attributed to John wooden which I found to be quite fascinating. I asked if it would be okay for me to share them on our blog for inspiration and contemplation and he agreed. So here they are:

There are more books written about leadership and culture than anyone could possibly read in a lifetime. Hollywood often depicts leadership in a manner that evokes images of a strong, powerful figure issuing orders and directives that lead the team to victory. But the reality is that as we think about the most powerful leaders in our history, we’ll note that they all had one thing in common; they were able to inspire others to share in their vision and purpose and influence them to join the movement. Leaders like Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, William Wallace (depicted in the movie Braveheart), Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi had no direct control over those who joined in their movement, but they had tremendous influence over them by enrolling them in their vision and delivering compelling and persuasive communications.

If you do a google search for “leadership books”, you’ll get 436 million hits! And if you search Amazon.com for leadership books, you’ll get 130,000 hits alone. There are more books written about effective leadership than probably about any other personal development topic. And yet, why is there such a significant deficiency in effective leadership in our companies, our churches, and our families? Why do so many perceived leaders disappoint families, businesses, colleagues, friends, and countries?

Employee brand engagement with employees is a lot like a romance that takes place with your significant other. You can’t just go up to someone after the first date and say, “marry me”. It takes time and patience, understanding and listening. Commitment toward each other. Ultimately after a number of months or even years you pop the question and the response is “Yes!” And you are off on bliss for the rest of your life.

Lack of employee engagement is the top issue currently facing 87 percent of HR and business leaders (up from 79 percent last year), according to Deloitte’s third annual “Global Human Capital Trends 2015: Leading in the New World of Work” report released today. Yet, the majority of organizations are still failing to take action to improve their culture, potentially jeopardizing future growth.